The Federal Reserve will release the final results of its bank stress tests after Thursday's market close. But preliminary results suggest Goldman could lose $25 billion from bad trades in another financial crisis, more than any other bank tested by the Fed.

Today brings what seems like a minor milestone in the big banks' fall from grace: a Bloomberg editorial announcing that Wall Street's largest firms would not be profitable without taxpayer backstops, and calling for an end to the perverse incentives that this arrangement produces.

In honor of Black Monday 1987 and Black Monday 1929, we bring you the October recession/depression quiz. If you've ever wondered what causes recessions, how we survive them, and how they end, take our quiz and find out!

After Greg Smith quit Goldman Sachs in the most public fashion possible -- slamming his employer in the pages of The New York Times -- the firm launched an investigation into his most explosive charge: that employees referred to clients as "muppets" in internal emails.

At Goldman Sachs annual shareholders' meeting on Thursday, CEO Lloyd Blankfein mixed it up a bit with a shareholder representative of the Almighty. And it wasn't the first time he's had a little trouble from the brides of Christ.

The fallout is still evolving from Greg Smith's public resignation from Goldman Sachs, a firm he called "toxic and destructive," where clients were mocked and their interests sidelined. In a DailyFinance exclusive, we have a response from another ex-employee who backs his claims -- and defends her former colleagues.

Goldman Sachs reported second quarter earnings of $1.09 billion, or $1.85 per share -- results that are below expectations. While still the most venerable Wall Street Bank, Goldman's quarterly earnings underline a key trait of the investment banking industry: Results can be exceedingly volatile.

To wrap your head around how much someone like Larry Ellison makes, try comparing his compensation to the median income of an American household, $49,777. His 2008 take of $543 million is the equivalent the annual earnings of 10,908 average American families.

Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy, by Raghuram G. Rajan, took home the honors at the Financial Times/Goldman Sachs business book of the year award. Keynote speaker Vartan Gregorian delivered a rousing speech in which he called the print vs. digital debate a false choice.

After eyeballing the firm's revealing second-quarter results, maybe investors should start getting used to the idea that Goldman Sachs will no longer be the invincible Wall Street powerhouse it has been all these many years.

As Goldman Sachs gets tangled in more lawsuits and investigations, its situation is looking more and more like that of Salomon Brothers in 1991, when top executives resigned in disgrace and Warren Buffett took over. Could the billionaire investor be getting ready for a repeat performance?

The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission's subpoena of Goldman Sachs for documents has thrust the beleaguered firm back in the spotlight. And now even a bullish top analyst is calling for CEO Lloyd Blankfein's head.

Goldman Sachs (GS) CEO Lloyd Blankfein loves to recount how he rose up from the mean streets of Brooklyn and won a scholarship to Harvard College and then on to its law school. But Blankfein turned around and bit the hand that fed him, to the tune of $500 million when, in February 2007, Harvard found itself on the wrong side of a synthetic CDO bet with Goldman.

In testimony before a Senate subcommittee Tuesday, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein will
defend his firm against SEC charges of fraud involving mortgage-backed securities. Goldman "didn't have a massive short against the housing market and we certainly did not bet against our clients," said Blankfein.

Goldman Sachs reportedly plans to claim it was unsure of the mortgage market's direction in 2006 and 2007. How this boosts its legal case against SEC fraud charges is unclear -- but it certainly signals that clients' interests don't come first for the bank.